CHARLESTON, S.C. – The most poignant moment of Isiah Thomas’ first practice as Knicks coach yesterday occurred in the final 20 minutes of the two-hour session, during “suicides.”

In the drill, if a player misses a free throw, the group sprints the length of the court and back. Unfortunately for Eddy Curry, free-throw shooting is not Jared Jeffries’ speciality.

With Jeffries missing three straight, the Knicks were on the move at the College of Charleston. And Curry, alone in the rear, looked ready to collapse, gasping for oxygen.

Instead of reaming Curry out, Thomas asked Curry if he’d like to sit out. Curry said he would continue. It was a test and both Curry and Thomas passed. Thomas did not humiliate Curry in front of the media like former coach Larry Brown might have, and Curry fought through the exhaustion.

“I’m trying to teach these guys about becoming one, thinking as one, acting as one,” Thomas said. “Not only did that tell me a lot about [Curry] when he stayed out on the floor, but his teammates encouraged him to keep going. It’s good to see a group coming together … because we’ve got a long way to go before we’re solidified.”

Thomas had Curry’s back afterward, claiming he’s pleased with Curry’s conditioning and the sight of the 6-11 center’s panting looked worse than it was.

“Anytime you have a big guy running with the guards, he’s going to look a little slower,” Thomas said of Curry, whom he plans on playing more than 25 minutes a night. “I was being a little unfair to him in asking him to keep up with the [Nate] Robinsons and [Jamal] Crawfords, and at the same time I was challenging him. Even though he didn’t keep up with small guys, if there were bigger guys out there, he would’ve looked much better.”

Said Curry, who’s still in better shape than he was last October, “I’m part of this team and you finish it. I wasn’t sitting down.”

It was a pivotal moment in this new era of positive reinforcement; an edict from ownership this season that the head coach refrain from demeaning the players publicly. James Dolan believes that fractured last season’s 23-59 group.

Stephon Marbury praised the practice as efficient. “It was straight to the point,” Marbury said. “The thing I like most about the practice is that we’ve got a time slot to get what we need to get done and that’s it. It forces you to be consistent. If you do something for three minutes and it carries over for 10 minutes, you’re taking away from practice.”

Brown’s modus operandi is doing a drill until done right, leading to endless practices. Marbury couldn’t help hide his joy.

“It’s more free flowing, and free going,” he said. “Everyone has a totally different approach. Now we have a coach who’s played the point guard position and has an understanding of the game and an approach that he wants you to express yourself on the basketball court the way you play. I allowed myself [last year] to look like a person who never played basketball at this level before.”

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One of Marbury’s former favorite coaches, Bobby Cremins, is the new College of Charleston coach and was in the bleachers yesterday watching his former Georgia Tech pupil. “What is the knock? That he’s selfish?” Cremins said. “Well, he made us better. When he started out at Georgia Tech, we struggled. He had made some mistakes. Then he really changed.” Marbury left after leading the Yellow Jackets to the Sweet 16 but remembers meeting daily with Cremins to talk about everything – a relationship similar to what he has with Thomas. . . . Jerome James never recovered from his training-camp hamstring injury last season and yesterday went down again with a partial tear of his plantar fascia. He will miss at least a few days if not more than a week.

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After the second Larry Brown hearing concluded yesterday in Manhattan, after 16 hours of testimony, Knick owner James Dolan flew last night to Charleston.